NewsWrap
for the week ending July 20, 2002
(As broadcast on This Way Out program #747, distributed 7-22-02)
[Written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Graham Underhill, Chris Ambidge,
Brian Nunes, Jason Lin, Rex Wockner, Lucia Chappelle & Greg Gordon]
Anchored by Sheri Lunn and Brian Nunes
Legal recognition of same-gender partners dominated the news this week.
Germany's highest court, the Federal Constitutional Court, in a 5-to-3
decision upheld the nation's year-old law creating registered "life
partnerships" for gay and lesbian couples which offer many of the benefits of
heterosexual marriage. The states of Bavaria, Saxony and Thuringia -- all
ruled by the conservative Christian Democratic Party, the CDU -- had
challenged the law as a violation of the special status granted marriage
under the German constitution. But the court rejected their challenge,
declaring that "marriage is neither damaged [n]or in any other way
restricted" by life partnerships.
Some 4,400 German gay and lesbian couples have contracted life partnerships
to date. The law pushed through by the ruling "red/green" coalition of
Social Democrats and Greens extends spousal benefits in areas including
inheritance, health insurance, immigration, shared surnames, hospital
visitation, and support payments following dissolution. Partners are granted
some parental rights over their partners' children, but gay and lesbian
couples may not adopt. A separate Government bill to recognize life partners
for purposes of taxation, pensions, and social welfare benefits has so far
been blocked by the CDU. However, if the CDU prevails in September national
elections, the man who would become Germany's Chancellor -- Bavaria's Premier
Eric Stoiber -- now says he will not seek repeal of the existing partnership
law.
Premier Ernie Eves of the Canadian province of Ontario announced this week
that his Government will not appeal last week's landmark ruling by the
provincial Superior Court granting full legal recognition to marriages of
gays and lesbians performed by the gay-affirming Metropolitan Community
Church, MCC. The Canadian federal government could still appeal the ruling,
but Eves said the national government should act instead to extend equal
marriage rights to gay and lesbian couples. That's something only the
Netherlands has done. Although many aspects of legal marriage in Canada are
controlled by federal laws, the provinces are responsible for registration.
Ontario's position in the MCC case had been that it could not register the
gay and lesbian marriages because only federal law determines who can legally
marry. The provincial court found unanimously that denying the marriages
"creat[ed] second class citizens" in violation of the national Charter of
Rights and Freedoms, but suspended its ruling for two years hoping the
national and provincial governments will redefine "marriage" in that period.
And for now that leaves Ontario same-gender couples wishing to marry in
limbo, as long-time partners and veteran marriage activists Michael Leshner a
nd Michael Stark discovered this week. With much media fanfare, the men
applied for a marriage license at Toronto City Hall, but were turned down
until such time as the laws may change.
But while Ontario is sympathetic to gay and lesbian marriage, staunchly
conservative Alberta has taken the opposite tack. This week the provincial
legislature passed a private member's bill to block any federal move to allow
same-gender marriage by immediately invoking the so-called "notwithstanding"
clause of the Canadian Constitution, which enables a province to disregard a
federal law or Canadian Supreme Court ruling. Some attorneys believe this
strategy would ultimately fail, and Alberta's own Justice Minister David
Hancock did not support the bill. But Premier Ralph Klein affirmed that the
provincial Government is prepared to invoke the clause against gay and
lesbian marriage, calling it "the only circumstance under which the
'notwithstanding' clause would be used without a referendum. And it would be
automatic. So it simply will not happen in this province... marriage is
where we draw the line."
Meanwhile, Canada's first civil union was contracted this week in the
province of Quebec. While equal marriage rights are being contested there as
well, Quebec last month created civil unions extending all the legal
recognition the province has jurisdiction to grant to unmarried couples
including gay and lesbian couples. The very first couple to celebrate a
civil union there were Roger Thibault and Theo Wouters of the Montreal suburb
of Pointe Claire, who've lived together for nearly 30 years.
They had previously gained less happy notoriety as victims of a continuing
campaign of anti-gay harassment by two of their neighbors, a situation which
led to a march by about 5,000 people in support of the couple and ultimately
to a C$36,000 Quebec Human Rights Commission judgment against the harassers.
Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan also have registered partnership laws,
although not as sweeping as Quebec's, and Manitoba may soon join that list
with a bill introduced by its provincial Government this week. The bill
would extend all marital property rights to couples who've lived together for
three years -- regardless of gender -- and create a registry to allow couples
to contract those rights from the beginning of their relationships. The
rights to be conferred include automatic inheritance should one partner die,
and equal division of property should the partnership break up. The bill
also provides that couples who do not wish to share property can "opt out."
A South African supporter of legal recognition of same-gender couples
resigned this week from his post as a Roman Catholic auxiliary bishop.
Celibate gay Monsignor Reginald Cawcutt of Cape Town had been the target of
protests by a U.S. group called the Roman Catholic Faithful for his
involvement with a now-defunct Maine-based Internet discussion group for gay
clergy -- even though Cawcutt maintained that he consistently promoted
celibacy there. His stepping down was mourned by the Lesbian and Gay
Equality Project. In his own official statement, Cawcutt said, "Because I do
not wish to be the cause of any further division in the church -- after 40
years of what I believed to have been service to the Lord... I will continue
serving the Good Lord with a lower profile." After being created a bishop in
1992, Cawcutt pioneered Church-based care for South Africans with AIDS as a
founder and long-time head of the AIDS office of the South African Catholic
Bishops Conference.
In the U.S., the first open gay ever appointed to an executive branch post
by a Republican administration was transferred this week. Scott Evertz
served a little more than a year as director of the White House Office of
National AIDS Policy, and will now serve as a senior adviser to the Secretary
of Health and Human Services on international efforts against AIDS. Evertz'
successor is openly gay physician Dr. Joseph O'Neill. Activists are
concerned that the reshuffle may signify the ascendancy of the abs
tinence-only AIDS prevention education approach within the Bush
administration, particularly in the wake of the appointment of abstinence
advocate Julie Gerberding to head the Centers for Disease Control. The
religious right had consistently objected to Evertz for his promotion of
condom use and association with gay organizations.
A Washington state appeals court this week became the first appellate court
in the U.S. ever to declare that the federal Constitution protects gay and
lesbian civil servants from job discrimination. The Division III Court of
Appeals in Spokane was unanimous in overruling a trial court's dismissal of
lesbian medical sonographer Mary Jo Davis' lawsuit against Pullman Memorial
Hospital. The decision said, "The law is well established that intentional
and invidious discrimination against an individual because he or she is a
member of an identifiable class, violates a person's right to equal
protection." The American Civil Liberties Union, which served as Davis'
co-counsel, hailed the ruling as a historic victory. The defense intends to
appeal it to the Washington state Supreme Court.
Back on the marriage front, a joint session of the Massachusetts state
legislature this week killed a proposed amendment to the state constitution
to restrict legal marriage and marital benefits to "one man and one woman".
A petition to place the measure before voters on the November 2004 ballot had
garnered 130,000 signatures -- twice the minimum required -- and had already
survived several court hearings amidst allegations that those signatures were
fraudulently obtained. A little shy of the 75% of legislators' votes needed
to defeat the proposed amendment outright, Democratic lawmakers killed it by
procedural means, by adjourning their session. That horrified several
hundred of the proposal's supporters who were present at the Statehouse, but
gay and lesbian activists rejoiced.
MassEquality.org board member Arline Isaacson told the "Boston Globe" with
tears of joy that, "It's great that so many legislators understood that we
should never put equal rights on the ballot for the popular vote, and that
the tyranny of the majority should not be allowed to take away the rights of
the minority."
And finally... a U.K. license plate reading "GAY 1" sold at a
widely-reported auction this week for 15,000-pounds. Yet that was a
disappointment to Andrew Saunders, who had hoped it might net him four times
as much. He complained to "The Mail on Sunday" newspaper, "You keep hearing
about high-profile personalities saying they're glad to be gay, but no one
seems to want to wear the badge on their car." Saunders' father gave him the
plate -- and the vintage MG Stag it was attached to -- almost 30 years ago.
Saunders explained, "It's been fun but I'm getting a little weary of the
rather obvious humor. I'm also fed up with the alarm of hitchhikers who
suddenly hide their thumbs when they see the registration. I'm not anti-gay
and have had a lot of enjoyment from the plates but GAY 1 does not reflect my
sexual preference." He noted that, "When my dad got the license the word had
a totally different meaning."